Life of Crime
by prepare4trouble
Summary: Ezra teaches a class in pickpocketing, Kanan finds out.


"Okay, so the thing about pickpocketing is, you don't even need special techniques half the time." Ezra said. He was speaking in hushed tones despite their secluded location, glancing furtively around for prying ears. "You just keep your eyes open for someone making a mistake you can take advantage of. If you're good enough, you can grab something without anybody noticing, and be miles away before the mark even realizes it's gone. The key is having the confidence to take the risk, and knowing the area well enough to escape. Preferably without looking like you're running away." **  
**

Ezra still couldn't quite believe he was talking about this stuff. It had been a long time since he had considered himself to be a thief. Well, in fact, he had _never_ thought of himself in that way. Thieves were in an entirely different category to him. They ran in gangs, they stole indiscriminately purely to line their own pockets, they lived to steal; it was a way of life to them. Back on Lothal, Ezra had avoided them. He hadn't been a thief, he had been a person that occasionally needed to steal in order to survive.

He was aware, of course, that to an outsider, the distinction might be difficult to see, and that was why he didn't talk too often about that chapter of his life. People would tolerate stealing from the Empire, in fact they would encourage it, but in general, thieves were untrustworthy, and people wouldn't be comfortable knowing there was one around. It would make them wary; make them look at him differently. Make them not trust him. And if that happened, he wouldn't have blamed them one bit.

He had resolved long a long time ago just not to mention it. He would talk about Lothal, he would talk about what had happened to his parents, and what had happened to him as a consequence. These were important things, things that needed to be said, things that people needed to know about the Empire. What he would not do was volunteer information that might jeopardize the friendships that he had made within the Rebellion

For some reason, one that he didn't fully understand, he had abandoned that promise to himself one night, and made an idle boast to Hobbie and Wedge. It had been stupid, and the moment he heard the words leave his mouth, he had known something would go wrong. He hadn't known it would be _this_ , because finding himself with two students eager for for a masterclass in embarking on a life of crime wasn't even something he had considered as a possibility, but he had known it would be something.

He supposed it was his own fault for making it sound like fun instead of talking about the fear of being caught, especially in the early days when he had made desperate opportunistic grabs against easy targets, and then spent the rest of the day battling guilt and terror that the stormtroopers were coming for him. The only way he had gotten so good at it was by being hungry enough that he had no choice but to try again, and again.

It was fun _now_ of course, but only because he knew he was good enough that he wouldn't get caught, and only because he didn't _have_ to do it anymore.

He paused, and thought back critically over the opening words to his class. Hobbie and Wedge might not have understood part of it. "The 'mark' what we call the person we're targeting," he added.

Wedge rolled his eyes, but smiled to show he wasn't entirely serious in his scorn. "Yeah, we figured that out already."

Okay, so they might have understood. Still, it didn't hurt to spell things out, he wouldn't be a very good teacher if he didn't make sure his students were following the lesson.

"Right. Well, anyway, other times there _are_ some techniques that make it easier, so I'm going to try to teach you some of those. But before I do, the first thing you need to know is don't tell anybody what we're doing," Ezra told them. "Trust me, you don't want people thinking you're going to steal from them. And you're _not_ going to steal from them. This stuff is strictly for on-mission use, stealing from the Empire."

"Okay, but then how are we supposed to practice?" Hobbie asked. "I'm assuming it's not the kind of thing you can learn by hearing about it, it's a practical skill, like flying. You learn by doing."

He was right, of course; they would need to practice if they wanted to gain any kind of proficiency at all. But he couldn't turn loose two amateurs on the base, they would be noticed, they would be identified and they would be ostracized, and the chances were good that they would drag him down with them, whether they meant to or not

It occurred to Ezra, not for the first time, that agreeing to this might have been a spectacularly stupid idea. "You're _not_ going to steal from people on the base," he repeated, barely able to believe that was a thing that he had to tell them.

Of course, _he_ did that sometimes. He didn't keep anything – he had developed a reputation for noticing when people dropped things – but it was important to keep his skills sharp. Not only because they could they come in handy on missions, but because at the back of his mind there was still, and probably always would be, a niggling certainty that the safety and security he had found on the Ghost couldn't last forever.

He had even practiced on both Hobbie and Wedge before now, and they were none the wiser. So fair was fair. "You can practice on me," he told them.

* * *

Two weeks in, and Ezra's pickpocketing masterclass was going surprisingly well. Wedge in particular showed a lot of aptitude for the skill. Hobbie was less talented, but since neither one of them were ever going to use it unless it genuinely was a case of life or death — he had made them swear it before he had even taught them a thing — it didn't really matter.

He was enjoying it. It was good to be able to show off using the Force, but there was something great about being able to share an ability with someone who had a reasonable chance of replicating it. He supposed that was why Kanan had chosen to teach him about the Force.

"No, wait," Ezra said as Wedge carefully reached into Hobbie's pocket from behind and pulled out the ration bar with his forefinger and thumb, making it disappear into his palm and then up his sleeve. The move itself was perfect, and Ezra doubted Hobbie would even had noticed, if he hadn't been a willing victim, but there was still a critical fault. "You're still watching what you're doing too closely. You don't just have to worry about the mark noticing you; if you're in a crowded place and someone sees you pickpocketing, chances are they're going to react, even if they don't know the other person."

Wedge sighed and pushed the ration bar back into Hobbie's pocket. "So what do I do?"

"It's what you _don't_ do that's important," Ezra said with a grin. He had been waiting to use that line for some time. "You don't stare at your own hand the whole time. You see the object, you walk up looking like you're looking at anything else, you grab it exactly like you did there, but without looking down, and you walk away casually, like nothing happened."

Hobbie frowned. "That doesn't sound easy," he said.

"What? Guys, this is the easiest stuff," Ezra told them. "It's just opportunistic pickpocketing. The hard part is when you start to use distraction to make them look the other way, or deliberately bump into them and grab whatever you're going for as you do, that kind of stuff."

Wedge and Hobbie exchanged a glance. "When do we get to do that stuff?" Wedge asked eagerly.

Ezra shook his head. "That's the advanced stuff. We'll get on to that when you pass the exam for this class."

He was making it up as he went, but it sounded good, and he already had an answer for the inevitable next question.

"What exam?" Wedge asked

Ezra shrugged. "You need to be able to take something from me without me noticing."

"That's not fair," Hobbie protested. "You're going to be expecting it."

"Then don't do it now," Ezra told him. "Obviously I'm expecting it now! You need to catch me when I'm not expecting it. Get me when I'm rushing somewhere, or I'm distracted. Anyway, if you were doing this in real life, people would be expecting it too. Nobody walks into a crowded marketplace or somewhere and _doesn't_ assume there are pickpockets everywhere. The trick is to be able to do it anyway."

Hobbie and Wedge exchanged another look.

"What?" Ezra asked them.

"You can use the Force," Wedge said. "Kanan can't even see, and it's impossible to sneak up on him. We have no chance."

He had a point, although they probably had a better chance against him than Kanan. Ezra folded his arms. "Firstly," he said. "You haven't been trying to sneak up on Kanan, have you?"

"Of course not, I'm not that stupid!"

"Good. Secondly, if you _can't_ do it, I'm not going to teach you the advanced stuff. So you can either try it and keep trying till you succeed, or stick at your current skill level." He grinned, feeling particularly teacher-like. "Class dismissed. Why don't you guys practice on each other for a while? Remember, get them when they're distracted, keep your movements small because they're harder to see, try to just touch the thing you're taking, and don't look what you're doing."

"Is that all?" he heard Hobbie mutter as he turned and headed back to the base.

* * *

His students were doing much better than he had expected. It was good, in one way. In another it was annoying, because he had little doubt that Wedge was eventually going to be able to pass that test. Maybe Hobbie too, if Ezra was _really_ distracted. That meant he was going to have to move on to that more advanced stuff he had talked about, and _that_ meant he was going to have to practice it. There was no way he was going to be able to get away with teaching them if he was rusty himself.

Luckily, Wedge had been right, he wasn't going to be able to catch Ezra out anytime soon. He had time to try out a few distractions, a few bump and grabs, perfect his technique before he was ready to show it to somebody else.

He would have to start soon though; the longer he left it, the rustier he might become.

"How are they doing?"

Ezra flinched and spun around at the sound of Kanan's voice. He found him standing a short distance away, arms folded. His mask covered the upper half of his face, but his lips didn't look happy.

"Uh…" Ezra said. he glanced around wildly. The class had been dismissed, and Wedge and Hobbie had left. There was nothing about the scene that would tell Kanan what had been happening, and he definitely hadn't been around during the class, so he hadn't overheard anything.

He had to be talking about something else.

Right?

"How's what doing?" Ezra asked.

"Your students," Kanan explained. "Are they any good?"

That was pretty unambiguous. Somehow, Kanan knew exactly what was going on. Ezra had slipped up, or Hobbie or Wedge had broken the rules and talked about it. Or Kanan had some mind-reading Force technique that he hadn't shared with Ezra, but he didn't think it was that, not really.

Ezra felt himself cringe. "We're just messing around," he explained. "They're not actually going to do anything."

Kanan nodded. "Right," he said, sounding unconvinced.

"No, seriously. I made them promise before I even taught them anything. It's purely for use on missions. It's actually come in handy a few times for me, when we've needed to get something out of Imperial hands. I figure the more people that can do it, the better for us." He smiled reassuringly, then stopped, realizing that it was completely lost on Kanan

"Hey, I could teach _you_ if you want," he tried. "I was just telling my st… uh… Wedge and Hobbie, for a lot of it, you don't need to be able to look what you're doing. In fact, not looking what you're doing is an advantage, because if you're looking at something, people tend to follow your gaze. You don't actually _have_ a gaze, so…" he stopped, and allowed himself to tail off into silence.

"You've thought a lot about the theory of this, haven't you?" Kanan asked.

It was true. Over the past few weeks, Ezra had dedicated a lot of time to thinking about the best way of doing things, analyzing moves he had previously made without even thinking about them, considering why he did a certain thing, and how best to describe it.

It wasn't surprising, now he thought about it, that Kanan had noticed something was going on. Ezra had definitely been distracted.

"So, what do you say?" Ezra asked instead of replying.

Kanan shook his head. "I don't think so." he said.

That was probably for the best, because while not looking what you were doing _was_ a definite advantage, it was also important to be able to locate the thing you wanted to take in the first place, and he didn't know how well Kanan would be able to do that.

Although, knowing Kanan, he'd work out a way of doing it pretty quickly, if there wasn't already a technique that he could re-purpose. And if he had Kanan on-side, he wouldn't get in trouble for what he was doing. Well, not from Kanan, anyway.

"You sure?" Ezra asked. "Even if you're no good at it, you might enjoy it. Why not just give it a go?"

Kanan smiled and shook his head. "I really don't think I need to learn it."

"You never know when it might come in handy. You could just…"

Kanan continued to shake his head. "Really, Ezra," he said, a little more forcefully. "I don't need to learn to steal."

Ezra sighed, defeated. The harder he pushed, the harder Kanan was going to resist. And if he pushed too hard, Kanan might get suspicious about his motives. "So, I guess you want me to stop teaching them?"

"I didn't say that," Kanan told him. "Just remember to be careful. I probably don't need to tell you that not everybody would be happy about a team of pickpockets operating on the base."

Yeah, he really didn't need to tell him that. Ezra still appreciated the warning. "We're not a team of pickpockets," he protested. For a start, Wedge and Hobbie were nowhere near good enough to be on his team, but also, it wasn't like they were going to actually go around stealing from people, it was purely for use on missions.

"Exactly." Kanan said, as though Ezra was playing along. "By the way, you dropped this," He held out his closed fist, clearly containing some small object.

Ezra frowned, confused. Kanan hadn't picked anything up from the ground, he definitely hadn't caught a falling object, or Ezra would have seen. He held out his hand to receive whatever it was. Kanan dropped the object into Ezra's outstretched palm.

It was his wrist comm. Ezra stared down in confusion at it for a moment, then turned his arm over to see whether it was really his, and found his own device missing. He had been wearing it earlier, he knew he had, because he had used it.

He hadn't dropped it. He knew he hadn't. It had been strapped onto his wrist, and it didn't just fall off.

But that could only mean…

He looked up. "How did you…" he began.

"The key to not getting caught is to make sure nobody would even think to suspect you," Kanan said. It didn't sound like he was talking about pickpocketing, or not _just_ about that. "Make sure your students understand that."

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Ezra staring after him in silent confusion.


End file.
